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Rubai (Quatrain) As a Classical Form of Poetry in Persian Literature

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Rubai (Quatrain) As a Classical Form of Poetry in Persian Literature INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH CULTURE SOCIETY ISSN: 2456-6683 Volume - 2, Issue - 4, Apr – 2018 UGC Approved Monthly, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Indexed Journal Impact Factor: 3.449 Publication Date: 30/04/2018 Rubai (Quatrain) as a Classical Form of Poetry in Persian Literature Ms. Mina Qarizada Lecturer in Samangan Higher Education, Samangan, Afghanistan Master of Arts in English, Department of English Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India Email – [email protected] Abstract: Studying literature, including poetry and prose writing, in Afghanistan is very significant. Poetry provides some remarkable historical, cultural, and geographical facts and its literary legacy of a particular country. Understanding the poetic forms is important in order to understand the themes and the styles of the poetry of the poets. All the Persian poets in some points of the time composed in the Rubai form which is very common till now among the past and present generation across Afghanistan. This paper is an overview of Rubai as a classical form of Poetry in Persian Literature. Rubai has its significant role in the society with different stylistic and themes related to the cultural, social, political, and gender based issues. The key features of Rubai are to be eloquent, spontaneous and ingenious. In a Rubai the first part is the introduction which is the first three lines that is the sublime for the fourth line of the poem. It represents the idea if sublet, pithy and clever. It also represents the poets’ literary works, poetic themes, styles, and visions. Key Words: Rubai, Classic, Poetry, Persian, Literature, Quatrain, 1. INTRODUCTION: Widespread geography of Persian speakers during the past centuries in the history of Afghanistan like many other countries, it can be seen and felt that only great men were trained in the fields of art and literature. The richness of this culture shows the capacity of its trained elite from different aspects of a particular country like Afghanistan, where only in the literary domain it can be mentioned that more than tens of big famous poets, writers and great philosophers who have lived in a millennium and this chain have continued until now. Poetry provides some remarkable historical, cultural, and geographical facts and its literary legacy of a particular country as Afghanistan. It also represents the poets’ literary works, poetic themes, styles, and visions. Studying literature, including poetry and prose writing, in Afghanistan is very significant. It is because of the monumental challenges that remain for those who choose to compose and publish certain work and for those whose works are engaged with personal struggle of socio-political issues. Among the artistic and literary forms, poetry holds a greater place in the consciousness of the people of Afghanistan. The poems have different forms and styles and they differ from its richly diverse population. Poetry from its broad sense of appeal is considered to be used as a means of communicating important ideas, passing on stories and heritage, and making political statements. The important credit would be given to the classical poets such as Mawlana Jallaudin Rumi and Saadi Shirazi. Studying literature, including poetry and prose writing, in Afghanistan is very significant. Poetry provides some remarkable historical, cultural, and geographical facts and its literary legacy of a particular country. Understanding the poetic forms is important in order to understand the themes and the styles of the poetry of the poets. All the Persian poets in some points of the time composed in the Rubai form which is very common till now among the past and present generation across Afghanistan. This paper is an overview of Rubai as a classical form of Poetry in Persian Literature. Rubai has its significant role in the society with different stylistic and themes related to the cultural, social, political, and gender based issues. The key features of Rubai are to be eloquent, spontaneous and ingenious. In a Rubai the first part is the introduction which is the first three lines that is the sublime for the fourth line of the poem. It represents the idea if sublet, pithy and clever. It also represents the poets’ literary works, poetic themes, styles, and visions. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: Due to the presence of a mutual relationship between the literature and social conditions, two factors can be involved in the emergence and direction of poetry. The poetic flow factors can be seen either out of the text or intertextual. These factors cannot be ignored by a scholar or an artist in the field of literature. Understanding the poetic forms is important in order to understand the themes and the styles of the poetry of the poets. Farzana Marie states in her book, “Loud Poems Like Guns” about the role of society that, “A society needs poets and storytellers to reflect its pain- and joy.” (2015, p.13) The landscape of contemporary literature especially poetry in Afghanistan is a very rich one which is getting much richer by the recovery of the country in general. These changes can be seen not only in Available online on - WWW.IJRCS.ORG Page 316 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH CULTURE SOCIETY ISSN: 2456-6683 Volume - 2, Issue - 4, Apr – 2018 UGC Approved Monthly, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Indexed Journal Impact Factor: 3.449 Publication Date: 30/04/2018 large cities like Kabul, Herat, Balkh, but even in small cities like Faizabad and others. There is no doubt about the historical influences of cultural, social and political, educational and literary production on different regions of Afghanistan. As Marrie adds: "A study of the poet's and poetry of this region, then, is a vital step towards understanding the poetry of Afghanistan as a whole (Marrie 2015, p. 6). There are several classical poetic forms in Persian Literature and the most common ones are known as Rubai, Ghazal, Qaseda, Masnavi, and Qita and this paper examines an overview of Rubai as a classical form of Persian Poetry in the field of Afghanistan Literature. Rubai is one of the ancient Persian poetic forms. It is original to this language. The other classical forms of poetry such as Ghazal, Kasida, Masnavi, and Kita are all originated in Arabic literature. According to some resources, the origin of Rubai as a poetical form backs seven thousand years ago based on Zoroaster's time. Generally, Rubai is a short poem of four lines which has two couplets in which the first, second and the fourth have the same rhyme, but sometimes all four lines are rhymed. It has its own composing form which is called Rubai meter. Each Rubai is separated poem and it cannot be considered as part of another long poems. Though it is original to Persian language and Literature, it is considered as one of the classical forms along with other forms such as Ghazal and Masnavi. Most of the scholars believed that “Rubai” is one of the most ancient forms of Persian Poetry. It is said to be very common in Arabic poetry which was contributed to Persian Literature later on. Rubai is a literary term which is called a quatrain or two couplets in English language. It is a very short poem which has four lines. It is a form of poetry in Persian poetry with its derivative function and form in English as well as other languages. 2.1 Rubai (Two Couplets) Rubai is a kind of Persian poetry which is the most specialized and individualized form of poetic expression in literature. According to the classical form of poetry in Persian Literature, Rubai is written with the rhyme-scheme of AABA or AAAA in four lines. There are several points of views of scholars about the form and definition of Rubai. There are several points of views of scholars about the form and definition of Ruba'i. Paul Smith defines Ruba'i as: "The Ruba'i is a poem of four lines in which usually the first, second and the fourth lines rhyme and sometimes with the radif (refrain) after the rhyme words…sometimes all four rhyme" (2015, p.9). 2.2 Parts and Metre in Rubai (Quatrain) The composed poem has metres which is called Rubai metres. Every Rubai in a poem is a separate poem and not considered as part of a longer poem. Rubai has two couplets or four lines which are different from Arabic poetry in terms of forms and metres. One of the greatest poet of Persian who is known as the father of classical Persian Poetry is Rudaki. He was the creator of Rubai’s metre. The metres in the lines of the poem can be recognized by the repetition of the rhyme in the metre. The word Rubai means "two couplets" which has four lines in length and different metre. Rubai was invented in Persian poetry for the first time by a poet named Rudaki in 941 A.D. Rudaki is one of the famous poets of the Persian literature who tiered to organized the line's metre in a new form and came up with Rubai form which has the repetition of the rhymes four times in two couplets. He is called the "The Father of Persian Poetry". It was two centuries later that Sham-e- Qias, wrote about the moments of poetic history and the effect of the new form on the people in different ages of poetry. He says: "This new poetic form fascinated all classes, rich and poor, ascetic and drunken, rebel outsider, all wanted to participate in it.... the sinful and the good both loved it, those who were so ignorant they couldn't make out of the difference between prose and verse, began to dance to it".
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